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Episode 1490: Yeah Jeets
Date January 23, 2020 Summary Ben Lindbergh and Sam Miller do a brief, spoiler-free followup on their Knives Out banter from the previous episode, then break down the elections of Derek Jeter and Larry Walker to the Hall of Fame, touching on the contrast between their voting trajectories, how and why Walker made it, the lone Jeter ballot holdout, the next sabermetric Cooperstown Cause célèbre, Scott Rolen vs. Omar Vizquel, the next few Hall of Fame ballots, and more. Then they banter about the Braves signing Marcell Ozuna and answer listener emails about the possibility of a player blackmailing a cheating team, whether sign stealing is more powerful than PEDs, when baseball becomes “history,” and why politicians so often bring up baseball, plus a Stat Blast about the Rockies’ pre-Walker Hall of Fame shutout. Topics * Teams getting their first Hall of Famer * Players blackmailing a team to keep a roster spot * Is taking steroids or sign-stealing a bigger advantage? * When does past baseball become history? * Politicians' involvement with baseball Intro The Spinanes, "Fame and Fortune" Outro Silver Jews, "Pet Politics" Banter * Episode 1489 follow-up: Listener Joseph emailed in with information about the baseball in Knives Out. Director's commentary from Rian Johnson points to the use of the ball as a plot device but does not mention any greater significance about the game. * Derek Jeter and Larry Walker's election to the Hall of Fame * Sam is amazed at Larry Walker's vote trajectory. In his last three years on the ballot he went from 34% to 55% and ultimately 77% of the vote. * Reasons to not vote for Derek Jeter * Scott Rolen and Omar Vizquel's Hall of Fame support * In reviewing the upcoming players on the Hall of Fame ballot, Ben thinks that Ichiro Suzuki has the best chance at being the next player to receive 100% of the vote. * Predicting future cases for the Veteran's Committee * Episode 1455 update: Marcell Ozuna signed a 1 year, $18 million deal, growing Sam's lead in the offseason contracts draft. Sam currently leads Ben by $313.3 million. Email Questions * John: "Given that this all started with Mike Fiers going on record, is it crazy to imagine a player who is called in to be released or demoted threatening his bosses that he would expose the team’s cheating scheme? Would it work, and what would be the ramifications? Could a guy keep his roster spot with a cheating team by using blackmail?" * Anthony: "Not sure if you saw this, but a poll just popped up in the fb group about which is a bigger advantage - steroids or the banging scheme. I agree with most that the answer that seems like it should be right is the banging, but based on the numbers, it's almost definitely the steroids, right? I just looked back through a bunch of known steroid users' pages, and almost across the board, their wRC+s went up 30-50 points. For the banging/alleged buzzing scheme to have been more beneficial to the hitter than steroids, the Astros' roster must have been full of average or below average hitters." * Jacob: "When does baseball history end? I remember from college having conversations about when history ended, ie how long in the relative past an event had to have happened for it to be a historical event and not a current event. I promise this is a real historigraphical question. There are even articles: the crutch being that a certain amount of time needs to go by before the dust settles and the participants fade away so that people can consider something with historical sobriety. I've traditionally held that baseball, and sports in general, doesn't work that way. Anything in the past, at least anything in a previous season, is history. When someone is the first person "in history" to do a baseball thing, we mean ever, not ever-minus-the-last-ten-years. We generally don't differentiate much between recent past and ancient history. I've had a couple things come up that have made me question that lately. First was Sam and Ben's conversation about the Astros sign stealing and how it felt different than the White Sox story from the 80s because the 2017 World Series is less historical, as the players involved are still around, the team is largely intact, and the dust hasn't settled. So how far back would we need to go for it to feel like a historical event, exactly? Would 2010 be long enough, 2005? Second has been the Hall of Fame voting, because the Hall is baseball's lone allowance for historical epoch-making (you can't get inducted until five years after playing, which is weird because baseball is otherwise so eager to end history yesterday). Is "five years ago" the time it takes to render something historical in baseball? If the Giants had cheated to beat the Royals in the 2014 World Series, how would we feel about learning it now? So, when does baseball history end, in your minds?" * Stephanie: “I have a question about baseball and politics. As you pointed out, one Congressman called for congressional hearings on sign-stealing, and since then, the City of Los Angeles (my beloved crazy home town!) approved a unanimous resolution to strip the Astros and Red Sox of their titles and award them to the Dodgers. This got me thinking: it seems like politicians are more likely to wade into baseball than other sports. Is that true? If so, why? Why is baseball more appealing to politicians than, say, football or other popular US sports?” Stat Blast * Larry Walker is the first player elected to the Hall of Fame who has ever played a game for the Colorado Rockies. Sam looks into how long (or quickly) it took teams to have a future Hall of Famer on their roster. * Since 1920 there have been 38 Hall of Famers to play for the Dodgers and 36 for the Yankees. * Of all expansion teams since 1961, they Tampa Bay Rays were the quickest to have a Hall of Famer play for them. Wade Boggs was inducted into the Hall of Fame seven years after the Rays' first season. * The Montreal Expos needed 31 years for a former player to be inducted into the Hall of Fame. The Washington Senators/Texas Rangers needed 30. Notes * This was the 7th straight year with at least one first ballot Hall of Famer. In that time there have been 13 first ballot Hall of Famers (this streak is expected to end next year). * Sam thinks that a player who tried to blackmail their team would possibly be banned for life but at the very least would never get signed by another team. * Ben and Sam are not convinced by the evidence for the benefit of both sign-stealing and steroid usage. In each case the evidence is very cloudy and hard to draw conclusions from. Sam says that he feels like sign-stealing should be more impactful, but there is more data pointing to the impact of steroid usage. * Sam estimates that baseball history currently ends around 2005 (or possibly up to 2007). He thinks all players from that era need to be retired for it to be considered history. * Ben offers up three possible explanations for the willingness of politicians to insert themselves in baseball matters: demographic overlap between baseball fans and politicians/voters, MLB's antitrust exemption, and baseball's history as the national pastime. Links * Effectively Wild Episode 1490: Yeah Jeets * 2020 Hall of Fame Voting Results * Derek Jeter and Larry Walker Took Different—Yet Equally Deserving—Paths to the Baseball Hall of Fame by Michael Baumann * Five things we learned from the 2020 Hall of Fame election by Jayson Stark * Marcell Ozuna is Headed to Atlanta by Ben Clemens * MLB's Current Sign-Stealing Saga Carries Echos of the Game's PED Problems by Jay Jaffe * How Much of a Role Did Steroids Play in the Steroid Era? by Ben Lindbergh * When does history end? by Evan Mawdsley * ‘Like Déjà Vu All Over Again’: The History of Baseball Metaphors in American Politics, From Abraham Lincoln to Harry Reid by Bryan Curtis Category:Episodes Category:Email Episodes